History

This course surveys global interconnections in history from 1450 to the present. Students will explore the rise of European economic and political power and the impact of that power on the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Major topics for discussion will include the impact of revolution and revolutionary ideas, the importance of technological innovations, the social and political climate out of which various philosophies and ideologies developed, the effect of imperialism on the non-Western world, and the rise of the non-Western world during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This course, which covers European history from 1450 to the present, is designed to be the equivalent of a college-level course. Content includes intellectual movements such as Humanism and the Enlightenment, political conflicts from the Reformation through the Cold War, and the evolution of the European economy. Students will take the European History AP exam in the spring, an assessment that challenges students to grapple with primary sources, retain five hundred years of content, and spontaneously respond to two college-level essay questions.

The AP World History course focuses on developing students' understanding of world history from approximately 8000 B.C.E. to the present. The course has students investigate the content of world history for significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in six historical periods, and develop and use the same thinking skills and methods (analyzing primary and secondary sources, making historical comparisons, chronological reasoning, and argumentation) employed by historians when they study the past. The course also provides five themes (interaction between humans and the environment; development and interaction of cultures; state building, expansion, and conflict; creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems; and development and transformation of social structures) that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places encompassing the five major geographical regions of the globe: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

This course challenges students to understand the world from the perspective of an economist. Students will first apply the basic concepts of microeconomics to the daily decisions of life at Lovett, a field of study known as behavioral economics. Students then examine the debates over American monetary and fiscal policy, the history of the 2008 meltdown, and the tension between the global forces of capitalism and environmental degradation. The course culminates with a series of guest panels made up of Atlanta"s entrepreneurs and financiers.

Note: Students enrolled in 552 - AP Macroeconomics or 554 - AP Microeconomics may not enroll in 532 - Introduction to Economics.

For members of all three of the world's major monotheistic traditions (Jews, Christians, and Muslims), Israel is more than a country. It is a spiritual destination. To journey there is to visit the heart of what it means to "walk through the Bible" in the modern day. This course will explore Israel's complex role as a biblical land, on the one hand, and as a contemporary nation, on the other. Students will study texts from Old and New Testament in the very locations where these stories are situated. They will also study modern Israel, exploring the contentious relationship between Israel and the Arab world today.